Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/125

 they were pleasing and pure. The old man had never had a more sympathetic and attentive listener, indeed some of his exaltation even communicated itself to me. My condition was like a slight opium intoxication, which makes music sound still more wonderful. While I congratulated him on this interesting journey, which conferred so much honour upon him, and questioned him and answered his lively outbursts, I drank my cup of coffee which Minna had poured out and given me. But far from finding the "brown nectar," prepared by my beloved's hands, incomparable, I decided in my own mind that Minna, true to her Saxonian origin, made "Bliemchen-Kaffee," and that the time would come when she would have to grow accustomed to be less economical with the coffee-beans.

I do not think, however, that I should have had the heart to refuse another cup, if I had not heard from the river the dull sound of the steamer's propeller. The others insisted that it was too early, but soon afterwards we saw the funnel of the ship over the green fields, like a black line coming forward on the white background of the waste slope under the quarries.

We were soon seated on the deck under the awning, and saw the house gliding by, the greenish table-cloth still shining in the shadow of the summer-house. We sailed towards Lilienstein and its twin brother Königstein, which now appeared opposite the former, with sunlight on the margin of its wall and on the small watch-towers. The glare of the yellow quarries flickered over the water, in which each red spot, or violet-shaded line above, here grew into a long, quivering streak. Along the banks, the fields, bushes, and fruit trees dipped their green reflections in the river. From the ploughing prow long mussel-shaped waves slid out to the sides, and as they came towards the bank the reflect-